Tipo 2
What you have--and thanks for quoting my books, albeit you were in the wrong part,
this is NOT a T26--is a "Tipo 2" variant, usually done by Terni. I've built a few myself, and they're generally superb performers. The ones I built were all set up to shoot commercial .308 or 7.62x51N NATO, and actually, most of them are tight enough. The T26--the rifle sometimes called a "Tanker" commercially, even though the original and the M1E5 were Airborne projects SOLELY--got its ridiculous commercial name from Fed Ord, albeit others have assembled them. Fed Ord was, to be blunt, the penultimate schlock house. As of a couple of years ago, some non-infantry units
were still toting "Tipo 2" rifles. And apparently the Danes and even the Germans used a few. I had one with BGS identifiers on it.
All Italian-issued "Tipo 2" rifles used American MAP-supplied M1 Garand receivers.
No "Tipo 1" ever left a factory in that configuration. They were all modified after the M1 was out of production.
Indeed, I was told thirty years ago that Breda and Beretta NEVER PRODUCED M1 Garands in quantity for the Italian Army, albeit they exported around half a million or more. The source was the "horse's mouth", by the way.
I've always doubted that. Still, it came from the 3 sources who ought to know, Breda, Beretta, and Italian Ordnance.
The receivers used for Tipo 2 rifles were generally micro-welded and re-marked, but retained their U.S. serial numbers.
They also spelled out that "no standard Italian-produced M1 used other than the four maximum digit, letter series European numbering system".
However, on the Danish contract, there were in fact receivers with five numbered digits, which makes one wonder....
Still, the Nigerian, Ethiopian, Colombian, Salvadoran, Yemeni, Egyptian, and Indonesia versions did NOT five digit serial numbers that I ever saw.
This is why research continues.
Some of the folks spewing fantasies online need to do a little research in European numbering and coding systems.
No T26 ever left the factory that way, and NONE ever saw field service. The "Tanker" never existed. That lie was an advertising scam by the corrupt, sleazy operators at Fed Ord, who put together some of the most horrible, dangerous misidentified grenades in human history.
Nor are M1E or BM59 ever the same thing, and less than a dozen actual military BM59's ever entered the United States, ALL before 1970.